The original caused a sensation when it was first published in 1906, not least among burglars. The word was that Houdini's writings were being bought in bulk by thieves, mediums, pickpockets and charlatans of every hue: both to check out new ruses and to keep unread the newest tricks of their trade.

Sales certainly weren't high because of the quality of the writing. Practically every paragraph is pompous, overwritten and aching to get back to the "bitter self-aggrandising and petty point-scoring" described in a splendid new foreword by Derren Brown. Brown still treats Houdini, rightly, as something of a hero, but is the first to admit the feet of clay – Harry Houdini's ego and love of kicking a rival long after he's down shine like black light throughout.

Houdini does reveal, eventually, a few of his own tricks, but not the, as it were, key ones. But we do get a fabulous insight into the world he entered when he ran away from home as a teenager to join, in one of his rare felicitous phrases, the "corrugated side of life". The illusions and escapes were often extremely physical, or chemical: weak collar-links, knowledge of the precise torsions and tensions of one single under-elbow strap on the straitjacket, and how subtle combinations of bismuth and "block tin" let one eat fire.

But this is mainly fascinating because of the insights into a time so recent yet so, so long ago. The likes of Derren Brown exist in an age when technology, and a finer understanding of mental prestidigitation, can produce results this author could only have dreamed of. Houdini existed at a time when 80% of his art was sinews and chemicals rather than computers. The true magic is that so much has changed in a single century, and this makes Houdini's record utterly invaluable: escapology as sociology.